


Psychosis

by SpiritWorld



Series: Hopeless [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Psychosis, Schizophrenia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 03:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiritWorld/pseuds/SpiritWorld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Psychosis is a symptom or feature of mental illness typically characterized by radical changes in personality, impaired functioning, and a distorted or nonexistent sense of objective reality. Patients suffering from psychosis have impaired reality testing; that is, they are unable to distinguish personal subjective experience from the reality of the external world ("Psychosis" 1 & 2)."</p><p>That is the very definition of Psychosis; A definition Isaac Lahey was much too familiar with at this point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Psychosis

He began to show signs of being psychotic after his brother died. No one thought anything of it of course at the time. Doctors merely passed it off as an abnormal amount of stress for a boy his age to handle. They said that it would go away with time, that it was just a part of the grieving process. For the next few months no one paid mind to the boy who would sit by himself, at times rocking back and forth in his seat whispering incoherent remarks under his breath. It would go away with time. That’s what they were all told, what they all believed.

But in reality it got even worse. Maybe, just maybe, if his father hadn't started drinking, hadn't started beating him, he would have overcome it; But he couldn't escape it now. Everyday, after school ended, he would dread coming home because he knew what he would find there waiting for him. His dad would stand in the living room, hands securely wrapped around the neck of a bottle as Isaac walked through the door. The insults would come almost instantly. Each one was harsher than the last. He told him he was worthless, trash, a mistake. His mother never wanted him and he and Camden never thought of him as part of the family and never cared. 

He knew deep down that that wasn't true, but the insults stuck with him long after he laid down in his bed at night adjusting himself so that he wouldn't sleep on any of the scars he had been given that day. Most nights sleep never came to him at all.

School was the only place he could escape his father. He hated the building, the students, the teachers; but it was the only place that he felt even remotely safe because he would never hit him in public. No, that’d ruin his image. 

He never bothered to make friends, not that anyone would have wanted to be friends with someone like him in the first place. No one needed to know what was happening to him. The last thing he needed was everyone’s pity. It was all his fault anyway as far as he was concerned. 

When he was alone in his room at night he would stare at his reflection in the mirror, eyes roaming over the scars that covered his stomach and sides. Some were old leaving behind faint marks, others were still new, heavily bruised and varying from purple to blue to black in color. He would take his finger and trace each scar wincing as he put further pressure on the cuts. The pain reminded him that he was alive and not in some cruel never ending nightmare. 

He’d give anything in the world for this to be a nightmare. To suddenly wake up and find his dad in the kitchen making pancakes for him and wishing him a good day at school like he did when Camden and his mother were still alive. He somberly smiled back at his reflection shaking his head at how weak and pathetic he was. Wishing would get him nowhere.

The beatings lasted for two years. It felt much longer than that to Isaac of course. He came home one night after the first day of his Junior year to find his dad passed out on the couch. It wasn’t really unusual, the man would often drink until he blacked out. Isaac would count those days as his lucky days because he usually wouldn't wake up until the next morning. He quickly ran up the stairs locking himself in his room for the night.

When he came down the next morning his dad was no longer lying on the couch but on the floor unmoving. He froze debating with himself whether or not he should get close to the man, but even from where he was standing Isaac could tell his breathing was extremely shallow. Without getting any closer to him he picked up the phone and dialed 911.

The ambulance arrived about ten minutes later taking his father away on a gurney. He opted to ride in the front of the ambulance instead of the back. When the arrived at the hospital Mr. Lahey was admitted to the E.R. They declared that he had had a heart attack and that he would most likely not recover. Isaac only nodded.

The day his father died, he laughed. He laughed for minutes on end not caring that everyone in the hospital was staring at him as if he had grown a second head. He laughed until his lungs became weak and his vision blurred. Tears clouded his eyes spilling down the side of his face but still he laughed. He slumped against the wall slowly slipping down to sit on the floor and, after a few minutes, he stopped laughing, stopped moving altogether. 

Doctors came rushing to his side when the sound of screaming suddenly filled the hallway. The tears now completely flooded his vision as the shrill scream continued to tear out of his incredibly sore throat. His eyes had turned completely red and he tugged wildly at his hair fighting off the people that came towards him. It was the first time, out of many others to come, that he had been sedated, only being allowed to leave the hospital a week later under the agreement that he would check back in once every month and move into a group home. Reluctantly, he agreed.

After that day his symptoms only got worse. He would see his father not only in his nightmares but during the day as well. When he got up in the morning to go to school he swore he heard the shattering off plates from outside his room door and he would drop to the ground in an instant cowering on the floor until one of the other kids would find him in his room huddled in the corner muttering something over and over to himself. Every time they mentioned telling the administrator Isaac would stop shaking completely and simply look up at them and say that he was fine. The kids who encountered the scene could only describe the look in his eyes as pure crazy.

When he actually did make it to school he’d make sure to be as far away from everyone else as possible. His grades began slipping because he could hardly pay attention in class. All he could hear when anyone spoke to him was his father’s voice. He saw him everywhere. Around every corner, in every room, there was no way to run from him and nowhere to hide. The one place that he once thought would keep him safe became his personal hell.

It came to the point where one day during Economics he mistook Coach Finstock for his father. He took one look at the man’s face and screamed scrambling to get out of his seat. Finstock jumped back in shock as he began to cry and plead. He urged for Isaac to calm down attempting to grab his shoulders and hold him still. All eyes were now on them as he thrashed around clawing at his own body as if he couldn't stand being in his own skin. They finally called his doctors and dragged him out of the classroom and back to the hospital.

It was during his check up that third month, after having run several tests on him, that the doctors diagnosed him as schizophrenic. He really wasn’t surprised at all. In response he shrugged his shoulders, looked his doctor in the eye and mumbled, “What took you so long?”

They wanted to keep him in the hospital for a while to observe him and start him on new medication. He stayed only for about a week in a half but the nightmares he had all those nights in the hospital were the most vivid ones he ever had in his life. It frightened him to no end and as soon as they formally released him he bolted out of the doors so fast he nearly fell.

His disorder was hell to manage. He couldn’t clearly see or think, and he felt on edge day in and day out. Voices clawed at the back of his mind, taunting him and pleading for him to let them in. Images damaged his sense of perception causing him to question what did or did not exist; and he constantly trembled never sitting still.

The one thing he absolutely hated the most was the medicine. Sure it helped him but he dreaded the way it made him feel afterwards, empty and derived of energy. He refused to take it himself most of the time and it was either the group home staff or his doctors that would force him to do it. They checked to see if he had actually swallowed it after they discovered his habit of hiding it under his tongue or on the side of his mouth. Even then he still made attempts to get rid of the pills. He’d purge mostly, it was the most effective way and no one had to know about it.

It’s funny to think that he wouldn't want to take something that would make him better; something that would cure him of all his delusions so that he didn't have to see his father again. But he treated the pills as if they were poison. In a way he felt that everything that was happening to him was some kind of cruel payback for not being strong enough. He didn't want the medicine, he didn't need it. It would become something he had to depend on, and that wasn't something he would let happen. 

So the now 17 year old boy was left to stare at himself in the mirror once more, his eyes heavy and dark, his curls matted, his skin still so visibly bruised, and slowly watched as his life deteriorated in front of him wondering what step he would take next and whether or not it would be his last.

That was years ago though. He had long since been taking his medicine regularly and had been able to go on living a sort of normal life. He was now 24 and living with his fiance Scott McCall whom he had met while studying Behavioral Neuroscience at a college in New York. It was a bit ironic that he would focus his studies on the field of psychology but since he would have this disorder with him for the rest of his life he figured it couldn't hurt to know more about it. Somewhere along the way it all actually began to interest him. 

Scott majored in mechanics which, granted, was no where near the level of Neuroscience and didn't include any of the same classes in those fields, but they had shared the same history class together three out of four years and wow was Scott terrible at it. 

It was hard for him to even begin trusting Scott at first because he still had yet to truly open up to anyone about his disorder. But Scott was incredibly nice and helpful, almost annoyingly so. 

He still had lapses during his years attending the college. The first year had been the worst by far. Scott had been the one to find him in the bathroom crying into his arms and pleading to the empty space in front of him to stop hurting him. He didn't run or ignore him like most people, he didn't even really ask him what was wrong, he simply sat down beside him and threw his arm around his shoulders pulling Isaac to him until his crying diminished into small sniffles. He remembered that that was the moment he began to fall for the brown eyed boy.

This year Isaac was beginning to get ready for his first year of medical school and Scott had just gotten a job constructing and designing parts for rockets and jets. They were both incredibly busy and Scott’s new job demanded a lot of his time but the fact that they were getting married that winter and that Scott was so incredibly proud of himself made it all worth it.

“I have to go now but I’ll call you on my break!” Scott promised crossing over to Isaac who had been absentmindedly staring out of the window lost in his thoughts. “Don’t forget to take your medicine, okay?”

Isaac scoffed turning around to face Scott who began biting his lip, an obvious give away that he was concerned. They had been together two years and out of that entire time he had only missed a dose once. He hated when Scott would bring up the fact that he used medicine because sometimes he’d come close to forgetting the actual reason he took the pills and it made him feel normal. Being reminded that he could never stop taking these pills, that this was something he had to do everyday until he died, brought back that uneasy feeling he had when he first began taking them. 

“Scott-”

“Isaac. Okay?” He nodded in response and a broad smile spread across Scott’s face. He leaned in closer to Isaac placing a quick chaste kiss to his lips. “I love you.”

Isaac smiled pulling him back into another kiss. “I love you too.” Scott looked as if he were about to say something but he glanced at his watch realizing that he’d be late if he didn’t leave.

“I’ll see you later!” He called over his shoulder one more time before walking out of the door. Isaac sighed making his way over to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. He popped open the mirror that hid their toothbrushes, deodorants, pain killers, and his medicine. Picking up the bottle he closely examined it for the first time in years reading off the possible side effects to himself. Drowsiness, restlessness, muscle spasms, tremor, dry mouth, blurring of vision and possibility of Tardive dyskinesia. 

That feeling of uneasiness came rushing back to him as he remembered how some of these had affected him when he first started taking it. He held the bottle in his hand, staring at it as if it would suddenly disintegrate into thin air. Then a thought passed through his mind, one he knew was a dangerous thing to think when dealing with psychosis. One would assume he of all people would know better, but still he allowed himself to think it. 

What would it feel like to not take the medicine anymore?

His field of studies of course stressed that to be an incredibly bad thing to do, but his curiosity threatened to overpower his common sense. He tipped the bottle sideways a bit holding it over the toilet and watching one pill fall in. Then two, then three, then eight, and eventually the whole bottle was empty. The feeling he got was not really one of regret but one of accomplishment. He had been wanting to do that for much longer than he cared to admit. He flushed the toilet watching the pills swirl around until they disappeared. Shutting the mirror he couldn't help but stare at his reflection. He saw a man who looked healthy enough. Nice curls, deep brown eyes, well defined cheekbones, and easy on the eyes, but if he looked hard enough he could still see that broken boy he was long ago, that boy he still is deep down inside.

He was proficient in his field, hell, he graduated at the top of his class. He knew what would happen next. Logic supplied that the psychosis would set in again in a matter of days. It was all just a matter of time.

**Author's Note:**

> I did a lot of poking around on psychosis for this fic and http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/psychosis was helpful for not only the definition but some additional information as well.


End file.
